First Single from Stanley & Son Released!

Rebel Records has released the first single from Ralph Stanley and Ralph Stanley II's upcoming album SIDE BY SIDE, "Carolina Mountain Home".  

The new single is available for purchase through iTunes, Amazon and other online music stores. The full album's street date is Tuesday, February 18.

Co-produced by the younger Stanley and John Rigsby, a former member of the elder Stanley’s fabled Clinch Mountain Boys band, SIDE BY SIDE is a compelling collection of 14 new and traditional songs. 

Among the highlights are classics from the pens of A. P. Carter, Charlie Monroe, Albert Brumley and Ernest Tubb and two Ralph Stanley originals—as well as samples of Stanley’s a cappella and clawhammer banjo stylings.  

Two of the musicians who back the Stanleys on the album—fiddler and mandolinist John Rigsby and banjoist Steve Sparkman—were members of the 2002 Grammy-winning edition of the Clinch Mountain Boys.

Longtime fans of Dr. Ralph Stanley will recall his introduction of his son Ralph II into the group’s live performances (playing a miniature plastic guitar) when Ralph II was just three years old. “Two” (as Ralph II is affectionately known) made frequent contributions as lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist in the 1990s. But in over 30 years of performing together they have never done a full co-billed album until this Side By Side recording.

“I’d just been a Clinch Mountain Boy, a band member with Dad,” Two explains, “and I was very proud to be that, but we’d never actually done a duet record like this.  Playing with Dad, who’s so much of a legend, could be intimidating—and he’s had such a great long line of lead singers I needed to live up to—Carter Stanley in the Stanley Brothers days, then Larry Sparks, Keith Whitley and Roy Lee Centers.

“But I’ve been on my own as a solo artist for about five years now and recorded three albums that way. I’m more experienced and more relaxed today and ready to show people what I can do with the master himself.  So I felt that this would be a good time for us to team back up. I asked Dad if he’d be interested in doing something like this with me, and he said yes, he’d love to.”

In SIDE BY SIDE, father and son now present a harmonious new phase of the Stanley family tradition.

A three-time Grammy winner, Ralph Stanley will turn 87 a week after SIDE BY SIDE is released.  He continues to tour and perform as a member of the Grand Ole Opry.